The free trial of the Sims Online game is currently undergoing a revision. Soon, according to EA, the free trial version will become permanent free play. Great news for those individuals who do not want the $9.99 monthly for full play, but what’s brought about this transformation?
Well, put simply, EA stuffed up. The Sims Online premiered to the public 4 years ago, and has earned itself a somewhat small user-base. The immensely popular game Second Life premiered at the same time, and contains gone from strength to strength. Now, Second Life is a very good game and plays to several strengths towards the Sims Online, nevertheless the Sims develops from a franchise that boasts the two highest selling games of all time. It shouldn’t are already too hard for EA to get a game, then, that at least landed in the top 10% of flash games. And initially, they did.
At the outset of January 2003, the Sims Online claimed over 100,000 active subscriptions, so that it is top of the list for games. Sales soared, and EA projected 40,000 subscribers right at the end of the year. And they gave up. Luc Barthelet, the Senior Vice President of Ea, seemingly turned his back around the game, and bugs and instabilities were left unresolved. Cheats sprang up which allowed players to get large amounts of Simoleons (the Sims Online currency), effectively destroying the in-game economy and rendering many of the objectives with the game (including employment) useless. Before the cheats arrived on the scene Simoleons could be deeply in love with eBay legitimate money, which is one of the attractions to many new players, which believe that their actions inside the game involve some sort of effect in person.
So Second Life grew, and also the Sims Online – a web based version of the very most popular games ever – sank into obscurity. A few faithful users tied to it, but a majority of players left rid of it alone, instead finding newer games with more interesting and innovative features. That, however, is going to change. Luc Barthelet announced in March 2007 that he is re-involving himself amongst gamers. The forums happen to be consulted initially in years, and also the Sims Online world is in for any shake-up.
One of the first moves that EA are generating is to created new cities for players to discover. They are also changing the emblem, and have promised to seal the loopholes that offer the money cheats. Registration will be greatly simplified, and also the free trial will become, soon, permanent free play. Needless to say there will be limitations: just one choice of city for non-payers; merely one avatar; less starting money. Nonetheless, this can be a real show of commitment by EA, and may no doubt bring in many beginners. New players, paying or otherwise not, will breathe life into the game, which is got to certainly be a good thing for EA, whose image was looking somewhat tarnished by its failure.
Exactly why now? Well, the Sims 3 is caused by be released in (possibly) 2008, which can have connected with it. Nobody wants a clicking goose on display when they are trying to build hype for new product, and it’s going to require some time for the Sims Online to acquire back on track. This can be a very promising (re-) start, though, as well as a very exciting time for it to get into the field of the Sims Online. New features such as AvatarBook, which works similar to Facebook, will help to provoke interest, and might pull in a really large audience indeed. Few individuals who have totally Sims games haven’t wondered what it really would be like to play with other people, but many have been postpone by bad reviews or friends’ advice. Now that’s prepared to change, along with the community could only get stronger and stronger. The question, then, is just not why EA decide to make these changes now, why they didn’t cause them to become before. Now we can only play and wait, and hope on this occasion EA gets it right. .
